A Month with the Elephants

Elephants in South Africa’s Addo Elephant National
Park
Photo by Erin Dowgwillo

So you want to save elephants? In fall 2009, Erin
Dowgwillo helped do just that. Dowgwillo, a zookeeper at the Milwaukee County
Zoo, studied elephants and black rhinos in South Africa’s Addo Elephant
National Park. From observing the park’s elephants at waterholes to analyzing
elephant poop samples in a makeshift field office, Dowgwillo kept a photo diary
of her trip. See her pictures in the photo slide show below (Zoological Society
members can also read about Dowgwillo in the spring/summer issue of Alive magazine.)

Dowgwillo’s work is part of an ongoing research
project led by Dr. Elizabeth Freeman, a scientist at the Smithsonian National
Zoo in Washington, D.C. For more on her
work, and links to other resources, see below.

This research summary on the Smithsonian
National Zoo Web site talks about the challenges and the importance of
breeding elephants in zoos.

If you’re curious about the science and
methodology of Dr. Freeman’s study, see this for details and a bibliography

This blog entry by researchers at the Lincoln
Park Zoo in Chicago has another perspective on studying black rhinos in Addo.